flashgordonfandomcom-20200215-history
Chapter 104: Battling the Sea Beast
Flash Gordon (serial) Synopsis Dale Arden faints as she watches Flash Gordon struggling for his life with an enormous octosak. Princess Aura and Prince Thun arrive just in time. Aura holds King Kala at gunpoint, and orders him to drain the water from the tank. She opens the tank, and rescues Flash. Back at Ming's palace, Dr. Hans Zarkov uses the laboratory equipment to signal to Earth. Lawrence Gordon and Professor Hensley receive the signals, and try to decipher them. Ming enters, and Zarkov learns that Flash and Dale are at Kala's city, which is being held underwater by magnets controlled from Ming's lab. As Flash fights with a Shark Men guard, Aura uses her ray gun to destroy the control mechanism that supplies the palace with air and keeps water out. She plans to escape with Flash, leaving Dale and Thun behind. Flash runs off to save his friends as water rushes into the palace. At Ming's palace, Ming and Zarkov see on the Spaceograph that Kala's palace is crumbling. Zarkov asks if there's anything they can do to help. Flash and Aura reach Dale and Thun, just as the main seal breaks and their chamber is flooded as the sea rushes in to claim them. Recap card Leaving Dale with Thun, who/was guarding King Kala in/the throne room, Princess Aura/released Flash from the tank/and then attempted to deceive/Flash into believing Thun/and Dale had escaped and/preceded them to Ming's palace.// But when the vengeful Aura/deliberately destroyed the/control board which by magnetic/attraction kept Kala's palace/safe under water--controlling the/air supply and water pressure--/Flash, suspicious, rushed to the/throne room to satisfy himself of/the safety of Dale and Thun and... Trivia *Dale faints twice in this chapter, a new record. She faints early in the episode as she watches Flash fight the octosak, then again towards the end as the underwater city runs out of oxygen. (As in Chapter 101: The Planet of Peril, Dale is the only one who notices when the oxygen runs out.) **Dale Arden Faint Tally ***Chapter 101: The Planet of Peril: 1 ***Chapter 102: The Tunnel of Terror: 2 ***Chapter 104: Battling the Sea Beast: 3, 4 ***Chapter 105: The Destroying Ray: 5 ***Chapter 106: Flaming Torture: 6 ***Chapter 107: Shattering Doom: 7 *The first three chapters of the serial followed the story of Alex Raymond's original comic strip very closely; this is the point at which the serial begins to diverge. In the strip, Flash and Aura escape from Kala's city easily, followed separately by Thun and Dale. The city is then destroyed Thun's father, using a gigantic ray. This story plays out in three Sunday strips, published from April 1 - 15, 1934. Cast *Flash Gordon: Buster Crabbe *Dale Arden: Jean Rogers *Dr. Hans Zarkov: Frank Shannon *Ming the Merciless: Charles Middleton *Princess Aura: Priscilla Lawson *Prince Thun: James Pierce *King Kala: Duke York, Jr. *Officer Torch: Earl Askam *Shark Men: House Peters, Jr., Jerry Frank, Cap Somers, Bunny Waters, Lane Chandler *Lawrence Gordon: Richard Tucker *Professor Hensley: George Cleveland *Zona: Muriel Goodspeed *Spaceograph operator: Al Ferguson *Earth radio scientist: Don Brodie Gallery Category:Serials Chapters